


The Trials and Tribulations of Brendol Hux II

by Robin_Harper



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: But it's a lot of Hux and Kylo being themselves, Gen, I make up a lot of terms and planet species, M/M, Ongoing as I think of Redhead issues, The Redhead Struggle is real, mostly a gen fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 11:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5964850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robin_Harper/pseuds/Robin_Harper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendol Hux II grew up on a planet of rain, and clouds, and a dull faint sun.  Days when the sun shined were prized on his home planet. Years later, his first visit to a desert planet with an unforgiving amount of sunlight goes a little awry....</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trials and Tribulations of Brendol Hux II

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kai_nimura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kai_nimura/gifts).



> Crack Fic!  
> Again, Un-beta'ed, please be gentle I beg you...

Part 1: Burn

He feared he had given himself away. Three days of physical discomfort and irritation and he had given himself away by scratching his nose in front of Kylo Ren. 

The source of the problem was simple enough. They had a supply run to the desert planet Geonosis and while on the planet’s surface, General Brendol Hux II had taken some recreational time to private enjoy the beautiful rays of sunshine that cascaded from the systems two suns. Hux had always enjoy the sun, the heat that came from a burning star had a way of soaking the stress from his body...

And burning away layers of his skin. 

He should have known better, but growing up on Arkanis had done nothing to prepare him for the unforgiving rays of sun that had turned his entire body to the color of his hair. His home planet has sunshine so rarely, he spent many days praying for the sun to shine only to be greeted by rain coming down harder, or misting at him--remaining cloudy enough that the small star’s rays of light couldn’t penetrate through the grey mantel that coated Arkanis. 

Everyone went out in the sun when it came out, they would smile and laugh and enjoy the slight warmth that soaked the damp wetness that surrounded them--making their world glisten and shine like diamond. 

But the sun had never burned him there, the worst that had ever happened to Hux on Arkanis after a day in the sun was his freckles darkening enough to be seen. Small light brown flecks of color under his eyes and over his chin.

He hated his freckles. 

But they were nothing compared to the burning, angry red flesh that he currently had to deal with beneath his uniform. 

Oh, it had been an uncomfortable few days...

~~~

That first evening was horrifying as he watched his skin turn a deeper, redder shade before his very eyes. He had almost panicked and fled to the medical bay, but pride held him firm. It would pass, he told himself, it was merely a discoloration, nothing to be anxious about. 

The redhead had went to bed that night, not realizing that the sheets on his bed were so blasted itchy and scratchy that he couldn’t even tolerate lying on them long enough to fall asleep. Such was his discomfort that he had gotten up to take a hot shower to try and calm his mind that had been wound tightly in irritation at sleep eluding him. 

That had been his first mistake. He had climbed into the sonic shower and turned it on high.

And had screamed bloody murder before he ripped the handle off of the shower head in an attempt to turn the spray off. 

The next morning he was quivering in pain as he had to take a shower as hot as the burning volcanoes of Mustafar that was completely his own fault for having yanked off his shower handle the evening before. Stupid. 

He had gone to maintenance first thing that morning to inform them of the broken handle that needed to be fixed -immediately-. Perhaps he was a little more irritable, or looked a little less put together than normal. Was his hair out of place? Or maybe it was just that his face was the same color of a red giant star...Everyone around him seemed to be doing their best not to stare, and when he had demanded the fix for his shower handle the officer just nodded quickly and dashed off to take care of the General’s problem at once. 

That was the first time he noticed Kylo Ren’s black-suited figure watching him, his mask firmly in place as he lingered on his own duties to watch the General interact with his crew. 

Hux had given the man a nod and turned on his heels in a clipped fashion and continued on his way to the command bridge. 

~~

 

Thirty-six hours. General Brendol Hux II had spent thirty-six hours in throbbing pain, the redness of his skin seemed to have sunk into his muscles over the course of a night and he could feel -everything-. From the slight shift in his uniform as he walked, to his skin flexing and moving as he walked and stood at attention for the Supreme Leader Snoke. The bright pink burns radiated heat as well, which meant that Hux was sweating beneath the layers of black clothing he wore every single day without any trouble what-so-ever before. 

But not now. He felt a small shiver run down his spine as a small bead of sweat trickled down his temple and finally the gel that was keeping his hair slicked back and in pristine order started to lose the battle and a strand of his red locks fell into his face as he was saluting Snoke. 

Of course, Kylo Ren was standing right beside him, eyeing him out of the corners of his eyes as this entire mess unfolded. 

He shot the man a glare as he was dismissed and he quickly pushed his hair back into place, and parted with a turn of his heels which clicked against the metal floor of the room quicker than his usual pace. 

He didn’t stay behind and spy in on the rest of Snoke’s meeting with the Knight as usual, but instead made his way directly to the Linen Cleaning and Sorting room to demand answers. 

Once there he approached the one officer on duty in the large room where the crew’s clothing was sent from their private quarters to to be cleaned before they were returned--freshly pressed to perfection. Nothing less for the First Order’s Flag Ship. 

He asked the officer to explain, in detail, the process that his clothing had went through, and if there had been some malfunction as of late--the entire conversation drolled on for ten minutes and each minute that the young officer spent explaining that no, there had been no malfunctions, and that she was sorry, sir but there was nothing that could be done to make his clothing softer--they would have to further research what was the matter with Hux’s clothing if he didn’t find it satisfactory. 

General Hux gritted his teeth and tried to breath steadily, but the pain of his very clothing, and the heat that threatened to cook him from inside out made his temper short. He’s had to push his hair back in order a total of four times since his meeting with Snoke and the redhead finally snapped. 

“I don’t care what you have to do--just figure out why the hell my clothing is so rough and -fix it-” he snapped, unaware that the young girls paling features and frightened expression had nothing to do with his outburst, but rather, came from a dark figure just behind the General who had entered the room without being noticed and not stood over Hux, masked and full of intimidation. 

“Well! Don’t just stare at me Officer 32--” Hux’s voice faltered as he felt a heavy, black gloved hand settle on his sore skinned, shoulder without care.

“Is something wrong, Gen--” Kylo Ren started but the cry that came from Hux drowned out the rest of his words. Hux snatched himself away from Kylo’s hand and hissed at him as he rubbed his shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!!” he growled and stared at the knight with his icy blue eyes, huffed, and turned to exit the room without any explanation or acknowledgement of the problem. 

~~

General Brendol Hux II couldn’t take it anymore. Three days of agony, sweating, and sore muscles and three nights with little sleep. He was fraying at the seams and barely keeping himself together as he stood on the command deck of his precious Finalizer, overseeing the work of the day as Kylo Ren discussed a mission with the other Knights of Ren. He was holding himself stock still and locked his knees to avoid swaying on his feet. His skin was still a bright pink but at least the repairman managed to fix his shower handle. Today he had a blissfully cold shower to ease his aches and overheated skin. 

But to his shock and horror, when he climbed out of the shower that morning and toweled himself down, his pink skin started to -flake off-. He stared at his shoulder in terror as he reached up and caught a pure white edge of a flake and -peeled- a long strip of dead skin cells from his shoulder. 

Then the itching started. 

If he thought his clothing had been painful the last couple of days, it was nothing compared to the severe, persistent, all consuming itching that he was feeling now. Everything from the tops of his feet to the tip of his nose itched like a wookie that had caught a bad case of Nabooine blood-mites. 

Of course, today was the day he -had- to follow Kylo Ren around like some dog on a leash, making sure to -contribute- to the Knight’s mission. Whatever -that- mission was, he had not a clue, he used to, but then his nether regions had itched so terribly that he forgot all about it. 

It was stupid. But his nose itched so abominably, and the terrible thing was that he could reach his nose and satisfy that burning desire to scratch away the irritation. Hux needed some sort of release, so he reached up and rubbed his nose with one quick, but satisfying, rub from his gloved hand. Sweet, syrupy release drizzled it’s way through his body, every nerve he had feeling some level of ease from that smallest of itches that he had allowed himself to have. 

That was the moment Kylo Ren’s masked face turned to stare at the General. 

Hux frowned at the man who was dressed in black robes, and gave him a flippant look as he turned to focus on the galaxy outside the ship. But he knew something was wrong, Ren advanced on him, taking purposeful steps up to Hux’s post and using his force powers to turn the redhead’s face up to look at his own masked one. 

“Ren!! Let me go--Now, What is the meaning of this?!” the General demanded as he was forced to stare up at that masked face. 

Kylo Ren lifted a hand to Hux’s face, the redhead struggled in the force hold, “I swear, Ren--if you dare use your powers on me--” He cursed him but the knight remained silent and instead, he touched the edge of Hux’s nose.

Hux felt his stomach sink. He felt, with a bone chilling dread, a piece of his skin peel off of his nose with very little effort from Kylo Ren. 

He scowled at the man and reached up to bat the dead skin out of his hand, but Kylo’s reflexes were too quick and he dodged the blow. 

Instead he inspected the skin before that foreboding mask turned back to stare at the General, to ask him a very simple, but pointed question. 

“Is your skin...-peeling-, General??” 

~~~

Kylo Ren had dragged him to the Medical Bay. The doctor on staff having taken one look at the General’s face before ordered the redhead to strip down to nothing and get into a bacta tank -immediately-. 

General Hux had been rather enraged at the idea, but there he sat in a tank with some sick smelling algae from Arkanis that was said to cure burns and bruises in approximately eight hours. 

At least the tank was opaque and his face didn’t have to be submerged. 

Just painted with the algae much that was currently making it’s way into every nook and cranny of Hux’s body. 

The General was rather infuriated to say the least. 

But of course he wasn’t alone--Kylo Ren sat next to the Bacta Tank, and Hux was -certain- the man was snickering behind the safety of his mask. 

“I thought I told you to leave,” he muttered, the thick algae coating his face made it hard to talk. 

Kylo Ren had to take a moment, his shoulders shaking for a mere moment before he seemed to find his voice again, “I just have one question, Hux...” he started, “Why were you running around, naked, on Geonosis? I assume that’s the only way you could have managed to get a sunburn -there-?” 

General Hux’s eye twitched with irritation and contempt, but at least the burning itch had gone away.


End file.
